Camden man wants to know why a 40-foot-high dirt dump continues next to his home

Carlton Soudan walked through boot-caking mud on the side of his family’s Camden house and proceeded to his backyard, where a fence has collapsed on several sides.

A 40-foot-high pile of fill and excavation waste, just a few yards from the Chestnut Street home, slopes straight up and looms over most of the block.

“You see the damage?” Soudan said with a sweep of his hand. “That’s because they used to back their trucks up here. This is what happened to my fence. They destroyed all this.”

He wondered whether such a pile would ever rise in the mostly white suburbs that ring Camden.

“This has been a long struggle,” Soudan said.

Soudan has support to push for a cleanup from a host of community groups that see it as an environmental justice issue. The group gathered Thursday at Soudan’s home on the 600 block of Chestnut Street, holding up a large aerial photo of what the city refers to as a “dirt pile” printed with, “Illegally dumped soil may contain contaminants that are threatening the health of you and your family.”

Camden Councilwoman Shaneka Boucher, who gathered with the group, said there’s a Council meeting on March 29 where Soudan’s plight — which also affects neighbors around him — is expected to be addressed.

“We’re hoping that the community will join to express their concerns about how we can address this issue immediately,” Boucher said, citing federal funds that might be available “to move this along faster.”

She praised the community and especially the Soudan family for their advocacy.

“It’s been a long time and they’ve had to fight this alone,” Boucher said. “Now they have some help from neighbors and community members.”

Vince Basara, a spokesperson for Mayor Victor Carstarphen, said the site had been in industrial use for 100 years, and that the mayor, county, and other local officials met last year with then-Acting Attorney General Andrew J. Bruck and Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette to tour it.

The city refers to it as an illegal dump. The stockpile includes fill material that tested positive for toxins and includes construction and demolition debris and tires, and “significant amounts of debris have migrated to neighboring properties.”

“Due to the potential hazardous materials, the pile cannot simply be moved haphazardly without a plan in place,” Basara said, adding the mayor is “pursuing multiple sources of funding/grants to help develop a plan to not only remove the pile but identify any potential contaminants. Fortunately, the City feel progress has been made and expects to have the pile removed in the upcoming months.”

Basara said it will take millions to clean out.

The New Jersey DEP sued a former owner and operator of the site, S. Yaffa & Sons, last year.

» READ MORE: New Jersey asks for court-ordered cleanup of ‘massive’ pile of waste in Camden

“For years, defendants have unlawfully imported and stockpiled solid waste on their Camden property, including contaminated fill material, construction and demolition debris, and waste tires,” the civil suit filed in Superior Court in Camden states. “Despite plaintiffs’ repeated administrative efforts — including numerous notices of violation and a final agency order — to compel compliance, defendants have continued their unlawful conduct.”

The suit said the owners “have also flouted the department’s enforcement efforts for nearly two decades by failing to properly close a 500-gallon underground [gasoline] storage tank ... which also poses a significant threat to public health and the environment.”

Further, the suit states that Camden, with a “significant low-income and minority population” has “been disproportionately exposed to high-polluting facilities and to the resultant threats of high levels of air, water, and soil pollution, and accompanying potential for increased public health impacts.”

The DEP asked the court to order an immediate cleanup in July against S. Yaffa & Sons Inc.

A representatives for Yaffa could not be immediately reached Thursday for comment, and owner Charles Yaffa has since died. Yaffa & Sons sold the property in July 2019 to Weyhill Realty Holdings LLC.

In March, the state named additional defendants including Weyhill, Franchi Contractors, and Site Service Supply. Court documents show that Anthony Franchi owns all three.

Franchi said Thursday that he purchased the property in 2019 assuming it would have some “legacy issues that would have been addressed over time.” He planned to use the site to store trucks, equipment, and material generated from his earth-moving business. He eventually hoped to develop the site into another use.

However, he said the city shut down his operations in April 2021, citing lack of a mercantile license he didn’t know he needed. So he was never able to remove any of the excavated material, and believes many of the issues could have been resolved through conversations with city officials.

“I think it should be known that if this was a problem, the city should have stopped it a lot sooner and we wouldn’t have the problem today with a giant pile of dirt nobody knows what to do with,” Franchi said.

The state’s suit has been transferred to Superior Court in Burlington County.

For his part, Soudan said no one has lived permanently at the house since 2013, when his father died. Soudan, who lives elsewhere in Camden, is still the owner.

He said dumping first started at the site in 2013, but was nowhere near as high. Soudan complained to then-Mayor Dana Redd and the dumping stopped. But the dumping restarted on a larger scale in 2019, he said.

“Apparently, somebody dropped the ball,” Soudan said, adding he wasn’t able to get a response from the city or state until recently. “So this is how much dirt has accumulated.”

But the issue at that dump site, which spans multiple lots around Soudan’s home and across the street, has a much longer history of trouble with the state.

The suit notes that between 2002 and 2021, the DEP inspected the property many times, finding repeated violations, and that the 500-gallon unleaded gasoline tank registered to Charles Yaffa was out of service, still contained gas, and had not been properly closed. The suit mentions a similar string of incidents through 2019.

In November 2020, DEP inspectors took 10 soil samples from the various lots involved and found each contained at least one hazardous substance exceeding state standards, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and metals. Both are carcinogens and have been shown to cause liver, kidney, and other organ damage.

Roy Jones, an activist who came out Thursday to support Soudan, is executive director of the National Institute of Healthy Human Spaces. He was joined by representatives of Concerned Citizens of Bergen Square, Native American House Alliance, Camden Voice of Action, Food and Water Watch, and the Parents and Student Union.

Jones called Soudan’s predicament an “extreme example” of a larger pattern of environmental injustice in the area.

“We think it’s important to continue to fight on this issue,” Jones said, " ... and to make sure that community is at the table where the state and local government can come and hear the voices of the people.”

The online version of this article was corrected to say Camden Mayor Victor Carstarphen, county, and other local officials met last year with then-Acting Attorney General Andrew J. Bruck and Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette at the site. The article incorrectly stated they met last week.